


extremely self-indulgent fic

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 'if you won't listen to me then go to jail', 2 bros serving an evil omnipotent entity, 5 feet apart cause they're not gay, Gen, Handcuffs, Hurt/Comfort, Paranoia, Poison, Poisoning, Sick Character, Sick Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sickfic, Whump, and handcuffls jon to a desk, anyway, bad man, but is it really paranoia if elias is actually a demon, but not together - Freeform, elias hurts jon on purpose, i'm so tired i'm sorry, in a totally platonic way, this isn't kinky i promise elias is just like, well i mean they're both gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: ...yes this is just a sickfic where Elias poisons Jon to remind him who's in charge and then Tim takes care of him even though he's mad, what about it
Comments: 20
Kudos: 336





	extremely self-indulgent fic

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if I should write a second chapter to this, because I had a great time writing the first but I have suspicions that it's Too Extra(TM) :)

Tim isn’t usually the last of the assistants to leave for the day--often, he’s the first--but today, he finds himself standing up from his desk only after everyone else has already gone home. Slowly, he gathers up his things: phone and charger (because he no longer does any work here), a book he hasn’t had the attention span to read, headphones, his wallet and keys. Just as he’s about to put his jacket on and go, he hears a door slam down the hall, and uneven, heavy footsteps he doesn’t recognize staggering toward him. 

He’s frozen in place. Tim can’t move, can’t breathe as he waits to see what horrible thing is about to round the corner to kill him—

“Jon?” he calls irritably as the boss in question stumbles toward him unsteadily. An old, long-dormant urge to reach out and help him stay upright surfaces, and he forces it angrily back down. “What are you doing?” 

Jon sways and catches himself n the edge of Tim’s desk. If Tim didn’t know him better, he’d assume he was drunk. He looks, for all the world, absolutely wasted: pale but flushed and seemingly unable to even put one foot in front of another. 

Tim wouldn’t even blame him, either. Honestly, he might be inclined to join him. At least it would be a somewhat more normal reaction to everything that’s happened, rather than what he’s been doing, all the sneaking around and stalking and lying. 

“I think,” Jon starts, wavering heavily and slurring his words badly, “think I might’ve been drugged.” 

Tim rolls his eyes, barks out a mean, humorless laugh. This is just what he’s come to expect from Jon: to neglect his body for so long he can hardly stand, then claim an assassination attempt. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Tim snaps. He’s not dealing with this. He doesn’t owe that to Jon, not anymore. “Eat a meal; have a nap. You’ll be fine. Nobody here cares enough about your stupid paranoid rambling to drug you.” 

He turns sharply on his heel to leave, promising himself he’s not going to turn around again—

But then, he hears Jon retreating, quickly, knocking some things off Tim’s desk as he goes, and it pisses him off just enough. 

“What the hell--Jon?” 

He hasn’t, as Tim had suspected, knocked the stapler and pen cup off in petty, cat-like obstinacy, but rather, it appears to have been an accident. That’s alarming, because for as much of a wreck as Jon may be, he’s certainly not that uncoordinated. Worse still, he hates a mess and would never just leave one that he’s created, but he doesn’t even seem to notice as he beelines for the restrooms, and Tim curses himself for not being as heartless as he wishes, setting his things back on his desk and following him. 

When Tim pushes the door in, Jon has locked a stall, and he’s vomiting. It sounds painful. 

Great. So much for just needing a nap and a snack. 

Tim sighs. As much as he’d love to just leave now, if he does, Jon will be alone. The likelihood of him getting himself home like this is slim even if Tim trusted him to try, and it’s not like Jon has anyone he can call…

“Jon,” Tim calls as gently as he can force himself to, “I’m going to help you home, alright? I’ll wait outside.” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer before exiting the restroom, leaning against the wall for several long minutes. He’s about to open the door and check on Jon again when he stumbles out, looking even worse than before: pale and shaky and sweaty and decidedly miserable, and this time, Tim can’t fight down the urge to steady him, especially when Jon nearly collapses into him. This close, he can feel intense heat radiating off him in waves. 

“Christ, Jon, why did you even come in like this?” 

Jon shoots him a watery glare. “Was… fine this morning. All day. Not ‘til I drank the tea… Martin brought it.”

Tim frowns. “Martin wasn’t in today, Boss. Remember? He had a root canal this morning?” 

Jon shakes his head. “But… after I went to artefact’s storage… there was a cup of tea on my desk.”

“Well, it wasn’t Martin.” 

“Then who…?” He crumples a bit more, and Tim supports him. 

“Look, do you really want to spend the evening playing detective, or do you want to go home and sleep?”

Jon nods. “That,” he agrees, “that one. Sleep.” 

It almost feels like old times, just for a moment, painfully so. Tim’s chest aches as Jon pulls away, just like he always does. 

“Want me to grab your things from your office?” 

Jon shakes his head. “I’ve got it. I hate to ask… Really, I do… I’m just… not sure I can—”

“Jon, just ask.”

“Wait for me?” 

Tim rolls his eyes. “What did you think my plan was?” He doesn’t want to hear the answer to that. “Go get your coat and whatever else. I’ll go call you a cab. Meet me at my desk.” 

Jon nods, and Tim watches him hug the wall all the way down the hall to his office before hurrying to his desk for his phone. 

It takes several minutes to get a cab, but even after he finishes, Tim finds himself still sitting and waiting. He hadn’t expected Jon to be particularly fast, not in his state, but surely he should be done by now…

After giving him an additional 90 seconds, Tim decides to check in, and when he does, he’s surprised to run into Elias in the hallway, exiting Jon’s office. 

“Elias,” he spits. “What did you do?”

Elias rolls his eyes in a way that still somehow reads as posh, polite, even though it’s rude and shady. “You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid.” 

“To Jon,” Tim demands. “Why were you in his office?” 

“What, am I not allowed to check up on an employee who’s feeling poorly?” 

Tim shoves him up against a wall in a protective fury he hadn’t thought that he could feel on Jon’s behalf, after everything that’s happened. 

“If you kill him—”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Elias chastises. “Even I don’t have the power to do that, not anymore. I’m simply sending a message. You’ll pass it on when he’s a bit more lucid, won’t you?” 

“What message?” 

“That perhaps I can’t kill the Archivist,” he drawls, leaning in close, “but I can make him wish I could.” 

Tim lets him go for a more pressing issue: Jon has still not emerged from his office. “Go to hell, Elias,” he mutters at him before he opens the door, and as much as he wants to turn around and start the fight anew when Elias begins laughing, the sight in front of him is immediately more important. 

Jon is sitting on the floor, pallid and ill, chained--literally handcuffed--to one leg of his desk. 

“I’m going to kill that bastard if I get the chance,” Tim swears under his breath, crossing the room to sit in front of Jon, who looks semi-conscious. “Hey, Boss, can you hear me?”

Jon nods. “You should go,” Jon mumbles. “Elias is—”

“He’s gone, for now,” Tim promises. Though he’s not quite sure it’s true, he’s relatively sure that Elias is at least done torturing Jon for the moment, and even if he’s not--well, he’ll have to get through Tim to do it, this time. “Let’s get you into a different position. You’ll wreck your back sitting like this.”

He’s absolutely not prepared for the way Jon cries out in pain when he touches him and immediately jerks backward, hands up in a placating gesture. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes, and Jon shakes his head. 

“No, m’sorry—you’re helping and I’m—I’m always—”

“Hey, woah, stop,” Tim soothes, catching Jon lightly as he tips forward. He’s so unbearably hot in Tim’s hands, he’s sure that it’s only because of Beholding that he’s even alive right now. He can’t even imagine what kind of poison Elias used on him, but whatever it is, he knows that the message has been received: Jon serves the Eye, now, whether he wants to or not. And looking at Jon at this moment, so pitifully weak and pained, he finally believes that Jon certainly does not want to. 

“Elias drugged me,” he slurs, and Tim smooths a few stray hairs away from his face. 

“Poisoned you, more like,” Tim corrects. “Yeah, he told me. You were right.”

“I don’t mean to be paranoid,” Jon continues as if Tim hasn’t spoken at all. Is he even listening? Probably not. He seems far away. “S’just—a bad situation.”

“For all of us.”

“And m’sorry I make it harder. Worse.” 

“You’re… doing your best.”

“Elias says he can’t kill me,” Jon says, looking him in the eyes with such feverish intensity that it makes Tim shiver, “but you’ve got to find a way. In case.” 

“In case what?”

Jon shakes his head and shuts his eyes, blindly reaches in the direction of the small rubbish bin under his desk, which Tim passes to him in time for him to start retching. He has nothing in his stomach to lose—what little he’d eaten all day has already been purged, so he’s left dry heaving painfully until there are tears in his eyes. Tim finds himself rubbing his back lightly. 

Tim doesn’t touch Jon. It’s just not something they do; not something they’ve ever done. When Sasha would complain of headaches from long days pouring over her computer, Tim would massage the knots out of her shoulders. Her hands are too small to reciprocate the massages (and, besides, Tim’s excellent posture means that he rarely has tension anywhere in his body, anyway), but Sasha had always his need for background touch. Her knee touching his while they eat lunch together, her intentional touch of his upper arm whenever she wants his attention, her hugs every morning and afternoon as a greeting and a goodbye, respectively: those are white noise he hadn’t realized he’s become accustomed to until, suddenly, after the worms incident, she just… stops. He’s not sure if it’s the trauma or if the scars freak her out or if she’s afraid of hurting him even though the wounds are long-since healed, but he can’t bring himself to ask. Part of its appeal, after all, had been that it was so natural, the way they’d just fit together like puzzle pieces, and to have to ask wouldn’t feel the same. 

Martin isn’t touchy in the same way, but there’s a warmth in his proximity, when he leans in to peek over your shoulder or when he brushes your hand setting down a cup of tea or when he insists on holding the ladder even though you’re only climbing up one rung for a file and there’s no chance you’ll fall. 

Tim doesn’t know how to talk without touch. He doesn’t know how to piece together what someone else really means, how they really feel, without touch.

And Jon doesn’t touch.

Yet.

Hot as anything, he’s malleable in Tim’s grip when the nausea calms down enough to move the bin away from his face and lie back. Tim’s got a theory that Jon’s bones are hollow like a bird’s, given how light he is, but the weight of him, slumped against Tim, is lax: he’s not resisting, not tensed. He’s grateful that Jon’s water bottle is full and on the edge of the desk, because he doesn’t have to get up in order to coax water down his throat. 

“Elias… said he’ll be back tomorrow morning,” Jon says long after Tim’s sure he’d slipped unconscious. 

“Can you last that long?” 

Jon hesitates. “You don’t have to stay,” he dodges, “‘s what’m getting at.” 

“Jon,” Tim sighs. The fact that after the paranoia, the pretension, the professional persona is stripped away, when the desire not to pull away is unmasked, that Jon is left only with the expectation that Tim will leave, well. It breaks his heart a little. “I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

“I’ll live,” he retorts with a sad laugh. 

“You’re burning up and delirious. You’d be terrified.”

“So?”

“So,” Tim replies, attempting to keep the irritation out of his tone, “I don’t want that.” 

Jon is quiet for so long that Tim is once again sure he’s passed out, and he’s possibly correct, but after several minutes, Jon whispers, “thank you,” and he pretends he doesn’t hear it. 


End file.
